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Sunday, March 6, 2016

F (2010)

F (also known as The Expelled) is a home invasion film that takes place in a school in stead of a house. It's comparable to movies like The Strangers (2008), Eden Lake (2008), and The Maze (2010), though not in quality. The Strangers and Eden Lake are superior movies in my opion. On the other hand, F is a slightly better movie than The Maze was.

Teachers and other staff of a college are terrorised by a group of hooded strangers. Among the teachers is Robert Anderson, a troubled teacher with a drinking problem. He'll do anything to save his daughter, who is also inside the school building.

F starts off really nice. Troubled teacher, Robert Anderson, is a pretty cool main character. There's a gripping atmosphere, mostly due to the setting in the quiet, dark school. We've got a decent cast with of one or two familiar faces (David Schofield of Pirates of the Caribbean, and Roxanne McKee of Game of Thrones). The movie starts off as a drama (a teacher who has desperately changed for the worse after a violent confrontation with a student in a classroom. He has got problems with his wife, his daughter, his boss, and teaching overall). I actually liked the drama part of the movie more than the actual stalking/thriller part.

After a while a group of hooded youngsters arrive to terrorize the remaining teachers and staff. The build up to potentially scary scenes isn't great, resulting in me not really caring about what happened to the victims. Another thing that irritated me is that the 'killers' are free-runners, causing them to run and jump all over the place. They obviously added this to make them scarier, but in my opinion it made them look less realistic, making it less terrifying. On the other there was some unexpectedly good gore. There is one paticular brutal scene where a victim's skin is carved, and her face bashed in. Some really brutal looking madness.

F is a pretty decent thriller. Not one that will make a whole lot of 'top lists', but decent none the less. Both the atmosphere and setting are really cool. The first part of the movie (without the actual stalking) is the better part of the movie. The build up of crucial scenes should have been better for it to be a very successful thriller. It's still a pretty entertaining movie though. Apart from the idiotic ending of course. Also a little strange that we don't get any explanation on the acts of the killers.

Fun Facts (Source: IMDB)

A week before filming began, Johannes Roberts' 1st Assistant Director James Nunn spotted some local kids practicing parkour, or free-running. They were quickly hired for the film.
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At one point, this was going to be a UK/ US co-production with a considerably larger budget. However, Johannes Roberts turned the US money down in order to retain personal control over his project.